


Chosen

by undeadstoryteller



Category: The Dark Crystal (1982), The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TV)
Genre: F/M, Parenthood, Stonegrot Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-16 14:21:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20839100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undeadstoryteller/pseuds/undeadstoryteller
Summary: Rian and Deet parenthood fic for Stonegrot Week. The prophecy says the childling will be raised by the Mystics. How did Deet and Rian come to the decision that it was the right thing to do?





	1. Chapter 1

Rian had never known cold -- real cold -- before today. The cold high in the Claw Mountains was a different kind of cold. Growing up in the Castle, it had always had a certain kind of dankness, but the dankness was temperate. He’d thought he’d known cold in the forest. Nothing had prepared him for this.

The cave they’d chosen for the night was finally warming up, and Deet was already sleeping peacefully by the fire. She, too, had been unpreprared for the desolate mountain caves, devoid of the life that made the caves of Grot vibrant and warm.

At least, they had been, before the Garthim War started, wiping away their plans to settle in Deet's underground village. He’d refused Brea’s invitation to lead her Gelfling army. That was his father’s lot, not his, and he’d long stopped pretending otherwise. He hated prophecy and told himself he didn’t believe in it, but it was a challenge when Mother Augra informed him, in her most matter-of-fact tone, that he and Deet were meant for something more meaningful than fighting.

“I would give anything to be in a warm battle caravan about now,” he said out loud, the vapor from his breath dissipating as it touched the flames. 

Nestled in Deet’s arms, the swaddled childling stirred, his dark eyes meeting Rian’s.

"I didn't mean that,” he said, as if the infant had understood. After a moment, he set the last brick of wood on the fire and lay down with his little family. 

His son blinked as he touched his cheek.

“You deserve better than this,” he whispered. “One way or another, you will have it."

***

They lay in silence, if not sleep, as the fire died down and the first light brightened the tunnel. Deet positioned the infant to nurse at the first whimper, the first mothering skill she’d learned to master after giving birth in the forest, exposed as anything, the morning after she and Rian had managed to escape the attack on Grot.

“Rian?” she whispered, knowing he wasn’t really asleep. He rarely slept anymore.

“Mhm?” he responded, pulling them closer.

“What if he’s what they say he is and we take him with us and he dies?”

“I’m not going to let him die,” he said.

Deet sat up, their son still latched onto her breast. “You’ve never crossed the mountains before. You’ve never been on the sea--”

He looked up at her. “Well, neither have you…”

“We’re barely surviving ourselves,” she said. “And he’s…” she looked down. “He’s so little. He needs to be somewhere safe, Rian.”

He sat up and looked her squarely in the eyes. “We’re not giving our childling away,” he said sternly.

Her eyes bored into him. “Even if it saves his life?”

Rian blinked. He knew that look. 

“Say what you mean, Deet,” he said, pulling himself to his feet. “Don’t talk in ‘what ifs’ if you’ve seen something.”

“It wasn’t a vision, it’s more like a feeling,” she said, then paused. “Well, it was a partial vision….” She looked up at him.

Rian had come to respect Deet’s visions. If it wasn’t for them, they never would have survived this long. But the journey to beyond the maps had been brutal and unforgiving, and he felt guilty every minute since his son’s birth. 

“But he’s still nursing,” Rian said. 

Deet nodded sadly. “By the time we get to Mystic Valley, maybe he’ll be weaned. Besides, Bobb’N and I took bottles.”

He sank down next to her, feeling defeated. “It’s obviously not about the bottles,” she said.

“I know,” she said.

“And we’ve come so far.”

“We’ve barely started.”

Rian knew, deep in his soul, that this was happening. Somehow, he knew the moment he saw his son enter the world that he 'was what they said he was,' as Deet would say. He knew he couldn't protect him. And he knew he wasn't meant to. 

And that was infuriating. 

"And what if the prophecies are wrong?" he asked. "What if we're just two Gelfling who met and fell in love and had a childling?"

"We would probably be dead by now," Deet said. "Drained and gone."

Rian winced. 

"The prophecy has kept us going, don't you see it?" She shifted the infant to her shoulder. "It's been true so far."

"But the childling to save Thra could be anyone's. We can't possibly believe he's the only one left."

Deet shook her head. "They don't capture our childlings, they kill them. You saw what they did to Grot. You saw what was left of Stone-in-the-Wood. The farmland of Ha'rar."

"Why does it have to be us?" Rian's emotions were starting to get the better of him. He didn't know if he could take another loss. 

"We made a choice."

"Well, it doesn't feel like we did."

She lifted her blanket, three layers thick, and placed it on Rian's shoulders.

"I don't know about you," she said, "but I'm far too stubborn to let prophets control me." 

The swaddled little one nestled beneath the layers on her chest, held in place by a fabric sling. She leaned in and kissed him, softly at first, then leaning into him completely as he wrapped his blanket-draped arms around her. She had a way of making everything fall away, even in the worst of times when grief seemed unbearable. 

In this moment, there was peace. They were happy. He never wanted it to end.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a relief to reach the foothills, below the bluster of the mountain face. The view was dark, the once-lush land dry and cracked. Deet could hardly bear to see it.

The thick blankets they had used to protect themselves from the cold had become a burden. Deet had rolled them tightly and tied them before sliding them into a crevasse. When they came back, they would need them again.

Her throat hitched as she thought of returning to the mountains without him. 

She picked up her pace. Her back was thanking her for leaving him with Rian as she looked for a place to hide the blankets, but her heart was scolding her for giving up any of the last precious time she had with him.

Rian sat near the edge of the clearing they had chosen to rest. The valley and all of its vastness spread out before him, but his attention was on the wriggling infant in his arms. He had unwrapped him from his swaddle.

Seeing him there, so enraptured with their son, made her heart swell. She had always been fiercely independent, happy with her fathers and brother, but never feeling the pull of romantic love, to the point that she'd never expected it. Expressing love physically was not something she'd longed for or especially wanted before Rian.

She remembered the first moment she’d seen him in Stone-in-the-Wood. He seemed arrogant, no different than any other Stonewood Gelfling who saw her as less. 

When he was allowed in to see the Maudra while she was turned away for not being 'one of us,' she was hurt. And yet, he resonated with her. If she was being honest, all Stonewoods looked the same in her newly-above-ground eyes -- but she remembered his face. When she found him alone in the forest -- the same forest where she would give birth to his child -- she remembered his face, and felt an unexplained affection toward him.

The little one grasped Rian's finger, causing a smile to spread across his face. 

"Look, Deet, look" he said,turning toward her. "He's strong."

She nodded.

"He'll be a great warrior someday," he said.

Deet furrowed her brow. "I don't think he'll be a warrior,” she said, kneeling beside him. "I think he'll be clever."

Rian paused. "My father was a great warrior," he said. "And he was extremely clever."

Deet immediately regretted her words. "I didn't mean to say --" she stammered. " Of course your father was clever --"

Rian sighed. "Don't be sorry," he said. "I don't want him to have to endure war either." He looked at Deet, deeply. 

"Having him has made me think a lot about my father," he said.

"Of course," she said.

He looked down at his son. "There were so many times that I felt my father hated me," he said. "I couldn't understand how a Gelfling could hate his own son so much."

Deet touched his arm. "Your father loved you very much," she said.

"I know," he said. "The way he died… I couldn't understand how he could have chosen his own death to save me." He looked down at his son. "But I understand now."

He looked at Deet. "I would do anything for him," he said. "If it causes me pain, if it kills me, I will do it for him."

She nodded sadly.

"As will I."


End file.
